Wolverhampton Council bosses: Cuts will not stop us developing the city

Wolverhampton Council must save £11 million on top of £23.8m worth of savings already agreed for up to the end of 2019/20.

Finance bosses have identified where £5.4m of the new cuts could come from.

They see up to 500 jobs at risk.

But the council still faces a budget deficit of £6m up until the end of March.

The situation is so serious that there is a risk of demands for services outstretching available resources, says the council.

And finance bosses, due to uncertainty, are unable to plan further ahead than 2019/20.

Yet, despite the economic situation, Councillor Louise Miles, the cabinet member for resources, said: “We will continue to focus on our priorities and developing new ways of working. We have faced austerity for the best part of a decade and have still managed to be named council of the year and attracted billions of pounds of investment, bringing jobs into our city.

“We will not allow anything to derail those priorities or our ambitions for Wolverhampton.”

Future projects in Wolverhampton city centre include the Westside project which will see a new cinema and restaurants on the site of the former market. The council has blamed its worsening economic situation on Government cut-backs and an increasing demand on services.

Councillor Miles said: “In common with councils right across the country, we continue to face cuts from central government which are having an enormous impact on services and jobs in our city.”

She added: “One of the major issues we face is a lack of information from Whitehall about how local government will be financed in the future. We would welcome clarification from central Government on how they intend to finance services in Wolverhampton, in particular our adult social care services.”

The news came after it emerged debt will rocket above an ‘eye-watering’ £1 billion in two years at Wolverhampton Council.